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Transcript of Leadership Enhancement and Development (LEAD) Program · Leadership Enhancement and Development...
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Leadership Enhancement and Development (LEAD) Program
Introduction
Organized by Student Affairs Office of the Hong Kong Institute of Education,
Leadership Enhancement and Development (LEAD) Program is designed to equip
students with the generic skills and world knowledge essential for young leaders of
the 21st century. During the program, students are empowered to organize cultural
events and educational plans to complete their tasks in their displaced countries.
Normally, we will send our students to developing countries like Southeast Asian
countries to do different kinds of voluntary work, ranging from teaching to building
infrastructure, for two to four weeks. We believe that our students can develop
intercultural communication skills and leadership skills through interacting with
people coming from different cultural backgrounds. The ideological differences in
their respective displaced countries can also expand their global perspectives and
strengthen their cultural adaptability. Most important, however, the culture of peer
learning promoted in our program will help students develop self-awareness, which in
turn, fosters their personal growth.
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The Three Stages in LEAD Program
LEAD Program is a year-long program that participants will be offshore during
Christmas, Easter, and summer holidays. However, all groups will go through the
three distinct stages of pre-departure, during program, and follow up in the program.
Stage 1: Pre-departure
The first stage, pre-departure, is characterized by uncertainty about group structure
and role expectation. Therefore, mentors play a significant role in assigning tasks,
developing group norms, and optimizing group structure.
1. Mentorship
LEAD program has developed a
successful mentoring convention
supporting the growth of the
participants and mentors throughout
the program. Mentors will have a one-hour pre-meeting every Friday before their
team meetings. In the meeting, they will report on their progresses, in particular VISA
application, accommodation arrangement, and their communication between the local
organizers. The mentor meetings also serve as a platform for mentors to share and
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discuss common problems and conflicts.
2. Weekly Team Meetings and Group Development
The program has had a
well-developed communication
system to support all
participants and other
stakeholders. Before embarking
on their voluntary programs, each group will meet for approximately 300 hours to
brainstorm and organize their plans.
As a common practice for team-building,
group members will get to know each
other in the first meeting. They will then
form their task groups with regard to their
interest and expertise, and work out their
plans. Once the group structure solidifies, task group members will then have chances
to present their ideas before the real execution. In this sense, students can get informal
feedback from their peers after their presentations. Indeed, students’ presentation
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skills have drastically improved through practices. They have gained more confidence
and psychological preparation for public speaking.
3. Seminars and Workshops on Leadership and Professional Development
Our program has also organized a number
of workshops on service leadership and
goal-setting. Students can discover more
about themselves through Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment. The
ultimate goal of the workshops is to help
students develop a respectful attitude
towards individual differences and sustain
cultural pluralism in a society. Students
are also guided to brainstorm how they can adjust themselves for socialization.
4. Wild-cooking Contest
Students of LEAD program will have an
opportunity to cook outdoor with their
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teammates. We will put the food preparation process to the test so as to motivate
participants to fully indulge themselves in the activity. It is believed that students can
develop teamwork and effective communication skills for collaborative work. A
debriefing will be held by mentors to evaluate group effectiveness and collect
feedback from teammates.
Stage 2: During Program
1. Voluntary Work - Education in Developing Countries
Most of our teams will be
assigned to teach at local
schools, ranging from
kindergarten level to secondary
level, where a small amount of refurbishment is needed during our stays. Our student
teachers can immerse themselves in the education discourse of developing countries
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and utilize their teaching competence to teach local students. Nonetheless, let me state
categorically that the following features of the education system in developing
countries are merely the results deduced from my firsthand teaching experience while
I do not by any means to underestimate or ignore other possible attributes. The
education system will be delineated from different perspectives shown as follows.
However, it remains unmistakable that the ideology and economic development of a
society will have great influences on the quality of education and the foci of education
system.
1.1 Drilling and Diligence
Education in developing countries advocates diligence
and repetition. Penmanship and reading aloud are the
most common practices in their education. This
phenomenon can be found in the schools I taught in
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Vietnam and Nepal. As usual, one student would be selected to be the leader and read
aloud for the class. Other students would be sitting in a circle reading aloud the
alphabet or Arabic numerals. For second language acquisition, students are
accustomed to copying English text to consolidate their English language learning.
1.2 Student Empowerment
Due to the shortage in human resources at schools, teachers in developing countries
tend to empower students to take up some teaching duties and other logistic
arrangement both inside and outside classroom context. In comparison with Hong
Kong students, students of developing countries have appeared to be more
independent and have lower level of uncertainty avoidance. When a new concept or
task is introduced in class, they tend to be more open-minded and more willing to try.
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1.3 Curriculum and Assessment
The schools that my groups visited did not appear to have a holistic and clear
curriculum for students. Students of different age groups could sit in the same class.
Therefore, it remains unsurprising to see the large age range among students.
Nonetheless, their knowledge discrepancy always affected the teaching progress and
their cognitive development. The differences in their learning ability manifested in a
mathematics test that we gave to a group of primary school students in Nepal. From
our observation, most of the older students surpassed the younger ones in the test. For
fairness sake, our group would like to separate the class by students’ age.
Not only did the wide age range not give green light to curriculum development, it
also blocked the possibility to establish assessment to facilitate students’ learning. The
shortage in manpower also eroded students’ motivation to get feedback from teachers.
Instead, they usually relied heavily on peer evaluation to give informal feedback to
their performances.
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1.4 Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment is still employed for positive discipline sake in developing
countries. If a student happens to misbehave or disobey the classroom rules, the
student will be punished in order to get rid of their misbehavior.
2. Evaluation Meeting
We highly value the
evaluation process in our
program. Running
evaluation meetings has
become one of our group
norms. The meeting is deemed to facilitate students to reflect upon their personal
encounters in their displaced countries. Despite the limited variety of work students
can enroll, we believe that the evaluation meeting is the most effective tool to help
students recall and gain insights out of their interaction with local people and their
intrapersonal communication within themselves. The meeting is also in line with one
of the core values of LEAD program – peer sharing.
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In the sharing session, students can
share their learning experience and
give confirmation to others. Such
practice provides a fertilized ground
for building a healthy group
communication climate. The legitimate participants are not merely limited to our own
group, but other international volunteers. Their participation will not only foster
closer ties with local organizers, but also encourage our students to step outside of
their comfort zones and use their second language, English language, to express
themselves.
Sometimes, students may have encountered some difficulties that they may need more
support. The team will serve as a think tank and generate ideas to tackle problems.
Some plans may have been executed effectively; we will still strive to analyze and
come up with more ways to improve our effectiveness.
Running a daily evaluation meeting requires two team members to take the lead. They
will be empowered to lead the meeting while giving feedback and paraphrase others’
ideas during the meetings. To my surprise, students’ communicative competence and
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presentation skills have improved significantly throughout the program. They tend to
produce longer and more complicated utterances in both their first and second
language.
3. Learning Journal
Each participant of the program will need
to finish their reflective journal every day.
The reflective learning journal is an
on-going assessment tool to evaluate
students’ cognitive and affective level of
the program, the social issues to which they
expose during the program, and the concept of international volunteering.
Students’ feedback will be collected through qualitative and quantitative means.
Students are guided to recall their voluntary experience in their displaced countries.
To this end, guiding questions are provided to help student reflect on their personal
development and their understanding of leadership. Evidences are highly
recommended to be inserted to support students’ performance appraisals.
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In addition to leadership concepts, students are also encouraged to manifest how their
personal goals have been accomplished in the program. As mentioned above, students
are expected to have acquired skills for identifying and accomplishing goals in one of
our pre-departure training workshop – goal-setting workshop.
Stage 3: Follow Up
1. Group Presentation
In the last stage of the program, each
group will need to complete a 20-minute
presentation at the Hong Kong Institute
of Education. They are given autonomy
to design their artifacts for their
presentations. The most common ones include Powerpoint and posters. Some groups
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may circulate group post-cards, booklets, and banners during their presentations.
In the presentation, students are
expected to talk about the voluntary
work they completed in the program
and analyze their group effectiveness.
They can also share some conflict
management skills and problem solving skills they employed. Since there will be
some other groups going to the same workcamps for volunteering, students are
encouraged to give suggestions or personal feedback.
2. Evaluation Report
Prior to the disbandment, more wrapping
up activities will emerge in the last stage
of the program. Students will be asked to
give a general evaluation on logistic
arrangement, accommodation, catering
services, and transportation. Group effectiveness and group learning experience are
also concerned in the report.
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Conclusion
What makes LEAD program stand out from the crowd is its student-centreness. The
autonomy with which participants are endowed enables them to be the ultimate
decision makers in the program. Working in different cultural contexts, students will
learn to utilize intercultural communication skills to perform effective communication.
In the face of unforseen contingents, students will learn to enhance their personal
qualities and become spontaneous leaders of the 21st century.
TAM WING YAN, REBECCA
2012-13 LEAD Program Mentor, The Hong Kong Institute of Education